Open Your Eyes
by Devious Child
Summary: This is a Marcus/Susan story that I thought of while listening to the song "Open Your Eyes" by Snow Patrol. This is not a song fic but was inspired by the lyrics of the song. It takes place during the 3rd & 2nd last episodes of season 4.
1. Chapter 1

Prologue

As Marcus slept, he had a terrible nightmare. He was on the bridge of the White Star with Susan during a battle. The battle was almost over when a piece of ship came hurtling at the White Star way too fast. He saw the debris hurtling toward them, but he was stuck in slow motion. He shouted, "Susan." But the words flowed from his mouth as slowly as molasses. Susan instinctively tried to duck, but the gesture was futile. The bridge crashed around him, and everything went black for a moment. Then, he woke up and began calling for Susan. He found her under a support beam injured but alive. He cradled her in his arms feeling the life draining out of her. He knew that he must be injured too, but he could only feel her pain.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 1

Marcus awoke in his chair on the bridge of the White Star with a shout. "It was only a nightmare," he thought for a moment. Then, the events of the past week came crashing down on him.

He wished the events in the dream weren't true, but they were all too real. They had won the battle against the Earth cruisers that were supplemented with Shadow technology, but the cost of that victory had been high. Many ships were destroyed including the one Susan and Marcus were on. Marcus had saved Susan by carrying her to an escape pod, but his efforts would only buy her a week, maybe ten days. Susan had suffered head trauma and massive internal injuries. The doctors tried, but there was nothing they could do.

The cuts and bruises that he suffered were fading, but that didn't matter because he could not feel them. The only thing Marcus felt was a bone-deep exhaustion. He constantly felt tired and cold as if he had aged a hundred years in less than a week.

In the medical bay, preparations were going on to send Susan to Babylon Five. The healers and doctors said there was nothing that they could do. Their defeatist attitude sickened and enraged Marcus. If they couldn't find a way to save her, he would. She was too strong and too important for him to let die. Like in the model he made for her, she was the center of his life, and he could not live without her.

Delenn and John were visiting Susan to thank her for her sacrifice and to say goodbye. Marcus had come too, but the thought of their impending separation was tearing him apart. He wished that he believed in souls and Heaven so they could be together in the afterlife, but they were fairy tales that made people feel better about death. This would be their final separation, unless a miracle occurred.

Delenn and John left, but Marcus lingered for a moment longer. He couldn't bring himself to say goodbye. He remembered how they worked together to find the First Ones during the Shadow War. They were like ants to the First Ones, but they managed to recruit them to their side and turn the tide in that war. If they could survive encounters with advanced races like these, it wasn't fair for her to end up being killed by her own people in a ship that was not much more advanced than the White Star. "The First Ones," Marcus whispered to himself, "maybe, they left behind some technology that could help us."

He softly kissed Susan as he left the medical bay. "This isn't goodbye. It's only see you later."

Marcus sat at the computer screen feeling the first real hope that he had felt for days. He hacked and sifted through hundreds of files until he had found the one that he was looking at. It was an execution machine that healed by transferring the life force of the condemned to a sick or injured person to save their life. "This is perfect," Marcus thought, "I'll sacrifice myself to save Susan. That way we can always be together because I will live on inside of her."

Marcus needed a way to get off of the ship and return to Babylon Five where Susan and the healing device were. He thought about trying to take command of the White Star, but he knew that the crew would not obey his orders to leave the fleet while John was in command.

Marcus decided to commandeer a shuttle because he knew that they could not stop the fleet in Earth space to retrieve one man who went AWOL. He placed a fake engineering request in the computer that authorized the shuttle to leave the ship for testing. He knew that this would not last long, but it would work well enough to get him off of the ship.

Luckily, stealing the shuttle went exactly as he planned. "Besides," he thought, "it's not like I'll live long enough to suffer the consequences." He meditated and prepared for his death to pass the time as the shuttle headed to the station.

Fifteen hours later, Marcus arrived at the station. John had alerted station security and Stephen to his plan while he was en route, but that didn't pose a problem for Marcus. He knocked out the security in the cargo bay with his Denn'bok and headed to the cargo bay where the healing device was stored. He dealt with the security guards there in a similar manner and brought device to Med-Lab.

Dealing with the security guards in Med-lab was slightly harder because he had to protect the healing device. John had ordered the guards to destroy the healing device if necessary. Marcus threw an empty jar into the Med-bay ahead of him to trick the guards into turning around to check out the source of the noise. While their backs were turned, Marcus knocked them out from behind.

Then, he brought the device over and hooked it up to himself and Susan. He laid his head on her chest and listened to her breath grow stronger. He felt himself growing weaker. He felt himself losing consciousness, but he fought to hold on. The only desire he had left was to look into her eyes for one last time. As he felt his eyes close for the final time, he whispered, "I love you."


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 2

Susan felt tired of holding on. Her body felt heavy, and holding onto it hurt. She chose to let it go. As she did, she heard God's voice say, "I love you." Letting go did not feel like she expected. She thought that she'd feel lighter and see a tunnel of light. Instead, she felt stronger, more capable of holding her body up. As she laid there, she opened her eyes. She saw Marcus laying on her chest, hooked up to the life force machine.

Susan tried to reach over to unhook Marcus, but her body wouldn't cooperate with her mind. She tried to call out for Stephen or anyone in vocal range, but her throat was too dry to make more than a raspy whisper. She began to cry in frustration. "You can't die on me, Marcus. I can't believe that you did something this bonehead stupid for me. I'm not worth it," she prayed hoping that God would alert someone, anyone to what was happening. As she laid there, an alarm began to beep alerting medical personnel to the changes in her life signs.

Stephen rushed to Med-lab from his quarters. He was prepared to see his friend Susan dying. Nothing had prepared him for what was actually happening.

When he arrived in Med-lab, he saw Susan lying in bed, crying. Marcus was sitting in a chair by her bed with his head lying on her chest. He was hooked up to the life force machine. Each second, it was taking his life force and giving it to Susan.

Stephen called Marcus' name as he ran into the room, but there was no response. He sprinted to the machine and unhooked Marcus. Then, he shined his penlight into Marcus' eyes, but there was no response. Stephen called for a med-team, and they began working on Marcus.

Susan tried to speak, but all that came out was a rasp. As the med-team took care of Marcus, he offered her a drink of water. Susan took a drink and began sobbing harder.

"I was ready to die. I never asked him to," she cried over and over.

"I know," Stephen answered. "Marcus took what happened to you very hard. I don't think he could live without you. He loved you a lot. He was always trying to prove it to you."

"I never should have pushed him away," Susan replied. "Maybe, he wouldn't have done this if I hadn't pushed him to it."

"I doubt it," Stephen said. "Marcus never could have let anything happen to you. Now, I need to go work on Marcus. You stay here and rest."

Twenty minutes later, Stephen put Marcus' body in a stasis chamber at Susan's request. He and his medical team had worked diligently to save Marcus, but he was too far gone. His body was perfectly fine, but there was nothing they could do to bring him back without his life energy. Lorien had brought John back from the dead, but he and all the other first ones had gone, never to return.

Susan stayed outside of the chamber crying. She wished that she had a way to save Marcus like he had saved her, but there was nothing she could do. On John's orders, Stephen had destroyed the machine because it was too dangerous to keep. No one wanted anything like this to happen again.

While she was keeping vigil, John called to say that her promotion to captain had come through. Stephen came in and told her. She exclaimed, "I don't care. Marcus is dead, and there's nothing I can do about it. I was prepared to die and go to Heaven. He gave his life to save me, and he doesn't even believe in that much. He only wanted me to love him. I couldn't do that. I knew that he wouldn't hurt me, but I was too afraid."

Stephen reminded her that she had been hurt in the past and that anyone in her position would have issues trusting people.

Susan turned her back on Stephen to end the conversation and said, "All love is unrequited."

Susan knew Marcus couldn't hear her, but she wanted Marcus to know how much she loved him for what he tried to do for her. She told him about how everyone in her life had abandoned her and how she couldn't stand the thought of losing another person. She told about her mother's suicide, her father's distance, her brother, Talia and various other men. She told him that she wanted to be with him, to hold his hand and spend the rest of her life with him.

"You need to wake up! I want to be with you, and all you can do is lay there and sleep. Wake up, that's an order!" Susan shouted.

Instinctively, she looked up for a response, but of course, nothing changed.

Stephen came in silently and dropped Susan's captain rank insignia off. When she looked at it, she realized that she had to make a choice. She couldn't spend the rest of her life crying in Med-lab; she had to move on, but Susan knew that there was no way she could stand to stay at the station. It would only remind her that Marcus was not with her. Being reminded of that every day was too painful for her to contemplate.

Susan walked to a computer terminal and began to look at ship's command positions that were open. One really stood out. It was a survey of an unexplored section of space where a number of First Ones had lived before they left the galaxy.

"The doctor's are wrong," Susan thought. "I can save Marcus." Someone, somewhere had to have the technology that could save him. Then, she could return for Marcus, save him, and they could spend the rest of their lives together. The only thing that she had to do was take that first step, alone. "It shouldn't be too hard," she told herself. She had spent all of her life up to this point alone, and now she had hope that she could end it.


End file.
